CECIL HURT: Nothing wrong with a little exuberance

By Cecil HurtSports Editor

Saturday

May 3, 2014 at 11:00 PMMay 3, 2014 at 11:17 PM

There is nothing wrong with decorum. The good old-fashioned value of “act like you’ve been there” is vanishing, as I wrote a couple of months ago after Clemson students stormed their basketball court to celebrate a win. A win over Belmont. In the NIT. In the quarterfinals.

There is nothing wrong with decorum. The good old-fashioned value of “act like you’ve been there” is vanishing, as I wrote a couple of months ago after Clemson students stormed their basketball court to celebrate a win. A win over Belmont. In the NIT. In the quarterfinals. Even a curmudgeon like me, though, doesn’t mind a little spontaneous emotion in sport, especially if it doesn’t involve taunting opponents or opposing fans. Athletes should be happy when they win, and especially happy when they win something important like a Southeastern Conference championship, a tangible reward for a full year of hard work. Something to be celebrated. Thus, it is time to defend the dogpile. On Friday night, Alabama’s softball team clinched the outright SEC title with a 3-1 win in Columbia, Mo. The victory wasn’t routine. Alabama lost the opening game of the series with ace pitcher Jaclyn Traina in the circle, and turned to promising but relatively untested Sydney Littlejohn for the Friday game, hoping to clinch the title and deny surging Missouri a chance to play for a share of that SEC title on its home field on Saturday. So there was nothing routine about the four-hitter Littlejohn pitched, or the Crimson Tide’s 3-1 win.So Alabama celebrated with a dogpile, a rush of players jumping on each other between the pitching circle and first base. According to the UA players on social media, they didn’t jaw or taunt — they just celebrated, as happy as if they had found themselves inside the chorus of a Pharrell song. That does not mean that everyone was happy. “I think it’s bush league,” Missouri coach Ehren Earleywine said. “I understand the excitement but I think that they, like a lot of SEC schools, take it a little too far.”First, as Patrick Murphy observed in response, it isn’t bush league, or all that far out of the ordinary in softball. Certainly, it was a disappointing outcome for the Tigers, who were just two wins away — in front of a raucous home crowd — from their own share of the SEC crown. But the fact the dream didn’t survive doesn’t obligate Alabama to act like they are attending a memorial service. Second, it is not worthwhile to get into provincial sniping at the SEC’s new members. Missouri has been a good addition and trips to Columbia — aside from nearly drowning at the 2012 football game — have been fun and welcoming. But if Earleywine doesn’t like being in the SEC because its student-athletes take softball seriously and celebrate championships exuberantly, it might be wise to express that in less of a condescending way. It is certainly within the bounds of tactics for a coach to use an opponent’s celebration as motivation for his own team. That is a little different than calling the opponent “bush league” in the morning paper.To leave it on a positive note: Alabama overcame a good bit of adversity this season to win the SEC by a comfortable margin. Murphy deserves a lot of credit. So does the fiercely competitive Traina and the rest of the roster. And if they choose to celebrate winning by forming a happy pile of humanity, that is just what they should do, regardless of what SEC city they are in.

Reach Cecil Hurt at cecil@tidesports.com or 205-722-0225.

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